Food Lion parent company laying off 350 employees

The parent company of six East Coast supermarket chains is laying off 350 corporate employees in North Carolina, Maine and Florida.

The Associated Press

SALISBURY, N.C. — The parent company of six East Coast supermarket chains is laying off 350 corporate employees in North Carolina, Maine and Florida.

Delhaize America says it is cutting jobs as part of a restructuring effort to reduce general and administrative costs. Delhaize has more than 1,500 stores that include Bottom Dollar Food, Food Lion, Harveys, Hannaford Supermarkets, Reid's and Sweetbay.

Delhaize is also eliminating 150 vacant positions.

The layoffs are coming primarily at corporate offices in Scarborough, Maine, and Salisbury, with small numbers at Sweetbay headquarters in Florida, company spokesman Mike Norton said.

The company is notifying affected employees this week and into next week, Norton said. There is no word yet on the specific number of reductions at each location.

All of the reductions are being made above the store manager level, said Christy Phillips-Brown, a spokeswoman for the company.

Phillips-Brown said the changes will help create "a new organizational structure that enables the company to operate more effectively and efficiently."

About 2,500 people work for Delhaize in Salisbury, the home for Food Lion, Bottom Dollar Reid's, and Harveys.

The company has been pressed by both Publix and Wal-Mart opening stores in its markets.

The company closed 113 stores last year, including all the Food Lion stores in Florida.

Food Lion president Cathy Green-Burns was replaced in December by Beth Newlands Campbell, the president of another of Delhaize America's chains.